With five sites across Peabody, Salem, and Gloucester, North Shore Community Health (NSCH) is ramping up its efforts to become a comprehensive healthcare facility, and that includes building its trans health program.

“As part of our mission to provide comprehensive primary health care to all of our patients, we decided to begin the important work of enhancing our transgender health services by giving dedicated training through the Fenway Institute to a team of primary care providers across all of our sites in Salem, Peabody and Gloucester as well as at the two high schools, Peabody Veteran Memorial High School and Salem High School, to competently address the specific needs of our current and future transgender patients,” said Damian Archer, chief medical officer at NSCH.

According to Archer, NSCH has completed two years of clinical training through Trans ECHO to prepare clinicians to serve trans patients and a curricula is being developed to train clinical and administrative staff to provide stigma-free and inclusive care to patients. NSCH even reached out to the LGBTQ community for mentorship and advice on how to best roll out the program and incorporate the training into its work.

Most notably, Archer said, “North Shore Community Health stands-out in the medical community of the North Shore as a federally qualified community health center because we are part of a movement to deliver social justice through the provision of equitable, high-quality health care.”

Perhaps NSCH’s work will signal healthcare best practices for the future, both locally and nationally.